


A Thousand Painted Teeth

by MercySewerPyro



Series: Here There Be Dragons [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Force Bullshit, Gen, Pre-Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Supernatural Elements, this is an odd one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23972059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercySewerPyro/pseuds/MercySewerPyro
Summary: “A tooth on its own is worthless, a mere hunk of useless enamel. Only together is the potential realized, and one simple bone becomes a jaw bristling with serrated death.Fight alone, and you will fall. Fight together, a thousand painted teeth, and you will shape the course of the galaxy.”
Series: Here There Be Dragons [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674430
Comments: 17
Kudos: 135





	1. The End

**Author's Note:**

> Something slightly different: a story without all the puzzle pieces (that may never have all the pieces) told in snapshots.
> 
> This is the end. And the beginning.

_“Everything ends. Stars fall. Galaxies wink out. Civilizations crumble to dust. Countless lives are snuffed out every day for a thousand unfair reasons, and the memories of those deaths fade into nothing. Everything dies, over and over, until the Void swallows existence itself._

_Everything ends._

_But everything begins, too.”_

* * *

There is a story, a tale long-lost or long-hidden, of death and loyalty. The Kaminoans do not believe in story for story’s sake: they believe in parable, a lesson learned through metaphor and spoken example. So this one rots away, its ‘lesson’ unneeded, giving itself to nothingness bit by bit except for the oldest of records. Even while remaining true.

Centuries ago, loyalty was harder to breed.

Centuries ago, a star falls over Kamino, black and writhing, dripping ichor onto the rain-spattered walkways of its otherwise stark, sterile profile. Falls and falls and falls, until metal meets flesh and the impact causes the entire city (which city? It’s never sure) to shake beneath the force of it. The creature gasps, and coughs, far too many wings and far too many legs shredded by the fall. By something having harmed it.

It has harmed them in turn; clones for a client also lost to memory crushed by its dying weight. Bones shattered, blood smeared against the deck with the viscera. Black and red, mixing together. Death in equal measures.

And this creature, this last-of-its-species, takes its last shuddering, gasping breaths with only the company of a dozen identical faces and their creators to bear witness. There is no pity here. No sense of what has been lost.

There is only black ichor leaking from its body even in death, and the curious prying eyes of those who have bred themselves to be scientists. Black is bottled, labelled, _catalogued,_ the corpse pulled away for study. Those exposed are monitored carefully, for the ichor that stains their landing platform isn’t anything that these Kaminoans have seen before, new and exotic.

They were right to watch. The ichor changes their products. Sometimes, it does so _violently._

The most exposed are monstrous in time, mutated creatures, creators of their own black. Unlike the rest, this kind of ichor fades; this kind is useless. These creatures are put down, the slate wiped clean. A setback, a loss of funds. No sympathy is spared for these twisted subjects.

The least are improved. Loyalty is hard to manufacture, even with the minds of the best geneticists the Kaminoans have to offer focused on it. A clone can be bred for it, be predisposed to it: loyalty to the cause, loyalty to their fellows. But it’s never certain, and here, in this time, with this client, it is enough to cause disaster.

Their clients are displeased. There are unveiled threats, and a withdrawal of much needed supplies.

But the black still bleeding from the corpse offers a supplement.

Only a drop is enough; more, and failure is invited in, the warping and corruption seeping into even the best of their specimens. A drop, and bonds are strengthened. A drop, and brother will lay down their lives for brother.

A drop, and their client wins the war.

When the Kaminoans still told this story among themselves, it was a story of ingenuity. A tale of fashioning triumph from adversity, advantage from flaw. The almost-parable was this: to survive, everything must be fashioned into the way forward. A still-bleeding corpse and a loss of troops becomes an asset if one simply looks hard enough.

The death of one becomes the salvation of another, and perhaps true loyalty can be bred after all.

But all stories die, and this one died quietly, in half-measures and fading memories. For it was a story of new beginnings from loss- And the Kaminoans do not concern themselves with phoenix-tales. Advice was followed simply because it had always been; a single drop because why would they change it?

But it was a story of rebirth.

And it was a rebirth that was not the Kaminoans’ to claim.

* * *

_“It was just like the rest. A thousand places to fall, and each and every one fell_ **_home_ ** _.”_


	2. Between

_ “The Jedi say the future is always in motion, but the truth is this: their future is a hallway of mirrors upon mirrors, a thousand fractured false possibilities all reflecting the same warped, inevitable moment. When the Jedi say that the future is not always what you see, they’re not exactly wrong; time is a funhouse, and the entire galaxy is trapped inside. _

_ But throw a big enough rock…” _

* * *

It starts with just another army, just another product. Three million clones, each to be the most perfect specimens they can create. It’s an order subverted; a Jedi asks, a Sith takes, and the Kaminoans are content with not caring about the difference.

For the beginning, loyalty is tantamount. For the end, obedience is demanded. Their best weave organic and technological together with unparalleled skill, and plant the whisper of  _ Good Soldiers Follow Orders _ into the result. When the time comes, their creations will be the perfect weapons they were always meant to be. 

When the time comes, the end of one era and the beginning of the next will be in the same breath.

But for now, they will have to rely on lesser means to ensure loyalty.

The Kaminoan bows her head as she pulls the bottle from the shelf, locked and guarded. Even now it lies half full of viscous, tar-like black liquid. It’s old, older than this facility, but age has not dulled its potency. Everything and nothing has changed, and this - not alone, not truly - has withstood it all.

“Here,” she murmurs, handing the precious container to the head scientist. Ko Sai examines the bottle with nothing but scientific scrutiny. There is no comprehension or care of the loss involved in the acquiring of it, of the price paid for such a fascination. Not here. Here, it is merely a means to an end.

The instructions on the label advise to only use a drop. Orders from those more important than either of them demand two, and there is no remembered parable-tale to keep them from following it. Loyalty must be ensured, and their payment hinges on the success of their creations.

Without a word, the lid is gently peeled away, Ko Sai dipping the syringe inside and drawing up the clinging ichor. Two drops into the genetic mixture - into the template that will dictate the entire army - are administered with practiced care, and the black disappears into nothing, dissipating, mixing with the rest. An action that could no longer be taken back.

A beginning.

Ko Sai nods to her assistant, the movement all satisfaction even as she turns away. “Everything is proceeding as planned. Monitor the sample for abnormalities.”

“Of course, Chief Scientist.”

Once more the bottle is locked away, shut from the world behind metal and glass, its duty done. The story still goes on, and the ending will be perhaps not as dark as a long-dead corpse bleeding out on cold metal. As three million clones losing and winning the war in the same terrible action.

In darkness, there is always hope.

In every end, there lies a new start.

Unknown to all, never mind the insignificance of two Kaminoan scientists, one drop would have been enough. One drop would have ensured sibling would die for sibling. With one drop, nothing would have changed.

Two drops, and the galaxy shifted beneath them.

* * *

_ “...And the mirrors shatter.” _


	3. The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy May the 4th!

_ “A tooth on its own is worthless, a mere hunk of useless enamel. Only together is the potential realized, and one simple bone becomes a jaw bristling with serrated death. _

_ Fight alone, and you will fall. Fight together, a thousand painted teeth, and you will shape the course of the galaxy.” _

* * *

Nothing happens, for a time.

But everything changes, in that time.

The Nulls bare their teeth and their rage and are nearly killed for it. The first generation of proud ARCs fall into line under the watchful eyes of Jango Fett. The Commandos are assigned to their Mandalorian teachers, for good or for ill. Some win the arrangement, and are the happiest they’ll ever be.  Some are abused, and not even the Mand’alor stops to intervene. He has chosen who he favours, and it is not his three million clones growing up far too quickly beneath his so-called watch. He chooses one child above the rest, and damns those remaining to a thousand ungraceful deaths.

So, so many siblings are pulled away to be killed; a small percentage, and yet still far too many. Defective. Useless. They are their own people, and for that they die. These ‘true’ Mandalorians look the other way, and in doing so shame everything they once stood for. Countless children will never see the light of a sunny, rainless day, will never see a world beyond dreary Kamino, and the galaxy is worse off for it.

Nothing changes, nothing stirs. And yet, everything is in motion. A thousand minds birthed daily, a thousand new memories, a thousand new individuals. For a time, Kamino will be nothing but children, even if those children are to be broken and distorted into weapons of war.

The Commanders are next, following their Commando siblings and proud leaders every one. They are succeeded so quickly by their rank-and-file siblings that the unneeded boundaries between them start to blur; their loyalties to each other are strong and fierce, and already it flares between them.

It doesn’t matter that they are set apart, that Jango pays them similar attention he does to the Alpha ARCs. It doesn’t matter that while they will never be of the same physical caliber as their older siblings, they soak up their training like a sponge, learning to be warriors far more Mandalorian than their younger counterparts. What matters is that they are loyal to their own, and as leaders they are quick to take their CT siblings under viciously protective wings.  Quietly a foundation is built, trust and loyalty woven between those otherwise set apart. The chain of command can’t keep CC-2224 from comforting the blonde-haired CT that he finds crying in the middle of the night, nor can it keep CC-1010 from placing his bulk between a furious Mandalorian and a pack of younger cadets and daring his superior to do their  _ worst. _

In so many quiet, defiant ways, the Commanders take care of their siblings.  _ All _ of their siblings: most are brave enough to reach out to their older counterparts, the ARCs, the Commandos. They cannot reach all of them, but to refuse to try would be against their nature. It would be to deny what they are, what they were born to do; they have been bred for this, but it is their own conviction that makes it their own.

Quietly this kindling is placed, waiting for a spark.

It is not in the nature of a spark to be grand. A spark is a whisper of promise, the smallest dot of heat. Its survival rests on a knife’s edge: with nothing to catch aflame, it will sputter and die. But a spark in the right place, a spark in the dry grass, in wood long dead, and fire is again birthed from the smallest of places. The rebirth can be a sight to behold, a phoenix from the ashes- But always the spark is so small as to escape notice.

And the spark here was just the same. No large show of defiance, no massive movement would set in motion what was always going to be, ever since a black star fell over Kamino. Instead, the heat began in the smallest of actions: a Commander would reach out their kindness to a sibling, just like every time before. A match struck again and again, finally alight.

The Commander who would be known as Cody, sharing his rations with a trooper who had gone without: a cruel punishment to clones near constantly hungry.

For an hour, maybe half, the universe held its breath.

And then the blaze  _ roared. _

And like all flames, it spread with startling speed. One match in the dark became two, two became four. Two hundred  _ thousand  _ troopers lit up as wildfire, a single roaring,  _ screaming _ conflagration. Two hundred thousand troopers screaming as one, out of fear, out of pain, out of experiencing the cusp of something new: something beautiful and terrible and the heritage earned through the black hidden in their veins.

Two hundred thousand clones, and the singing web of light between them. As one they realize what they have received, as one there is the glimmer of understanding. Minds touch minds, realize the scope of the alarm around them - from natborns, from their creators and trainers, witnesses of the birth of something newborn and powerful - and together as one desperately ask the changed universe to forget, to save them from the scrutiny of those who have never understood.

Two hundred thousand minds, together a jaw with a thousand painted teeth, achieve what should be impossible.

The natborns forget.

Everything has changed.

* * *

_ “Everything has a beginning. From the endless, unforgiving Void comes stars and light, galaxies spinning into being, cradles for a thousand worlds and a thousand kingdoms. No matter what, people will be born, will grow, will breathe their shining life into their homes and stories. They will build tales that will last generations, monuments to their beliefs, their sadness and their joy.  _

_ Their memories will linger, and that will be enough. _

_ Remember: everything here will end in time. There is no mercy at the last. But the Void that destroys and the Void that creates are one and the same. _

_ This is simply another beginning. _

_ This one is yours.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And so it begins._


End file.
